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Yes, because I'm sure it never ever occurred to them to have a district system like gw1. More like, they obviously did consider it, and guesting is a far superior way to go about it once it's enabled.

"Once it's enabled" is cheap. We won't know anything about it until it's here, so we could assume anything about it.

Why should guesting be superior to a system like in GW1?

Originally Posted by Fluffball

I don't totally understand why, but Queensdale is probably the third most active zone in the game, after CS and FG. There are almost always people calling out events there. I figure it's either people getting dailies, it's because most people have several low level alts, or that it's just plain nostalgic, relaxing (easy) and pretty.

Higher areas give higher-level loot more reliably, as well as more expensive mats. That's why.

I try to avoid lower level areas unless I have specific reasons to be there (e.g. want to get events done quickly, want to map it). Thankfully, I still have many lower-level characters to play in those areas.

@BladeDVD It isn't the numbers on any particulars server that's at issue, it's the ACTIVE numbers. Most players have seen it done it & are disappearing between special events.
Even with servers being practically empty, with the active population spread thin, I can't imagine anet merging servers any time soon. Can you imagine the headlines?

And most of these problems wouldn't have occurred if already working systems had been adopted from GW1.
Alliances & Dynamic servers specifically would solve most of them.
But instead, due to bad design, we're now hoping for cludgy fixes & work arounds, it's not good enough.

I still think it's a numbers and LFG problem. There are still a lot of people playing this game, and the ones spending a lot of time are those who like to bring up alts. Those kinds of people are joining all the time too, so it's really more a problem of not being able to find each other easily. Even in game you can only see other players when they are close enough to you. There might be thirty people in a given map and you'll only see a few at a given time.

Also, I think it's pretty clear that Anet didn't expect people to move through the content so fast (I'm basing this on some of the replies they were making when the problems with DE in Orr started being reported). And probably the guesting and group finding features are taking longer to put in place than they had thought several months ago.

As for GW1 features in GW2, alliances would help but they are really just larger guilds (and guilds can be much larger in GW2, I know some of our alliances from GW1 just joined our guild in GW2 since we were the alliance leaders in GW1), so you would still have the same problem. I don't see how dynamic servers would help any more than they did in GW1 if you weren't doing really popular content absent a decent group finding feature.

Also dynamic servers, as I recall it being said by others here when we first learned about the world servers, just won't work for a non-instanced game like this. Controlling the load of players on a given server is probably another reason the guesting feature is taking so long too now that I think about it.

I don't know Enough. Sure there are plenty of problems with the game, but I still find I have lots to do even when I do rarely hit a bug or a group content I can't solo. I'm still really enjoying things, but then I'm used to being on when most everyone in my guild and past alliance is not. And even if I did really want to play with others, I would just find a guild that had a schedule that matched mine better.

I don't think "instancing everything" is better. I will, however, agree that persistent areas need ways to control population density, and I have yet to see a good implementation including GW2. Other MMOs encourage players to play solo, which is terrible when you stop and remember that you paid to play a game with other people.

GW2 actually has content made for multiple players (even zergs) which is awesome. But it still needs a good way to make sure density doesn't drop too low in given places. Zaishen areas would imo be a pretty good implementation to fix that.

Guesting is another issue, an important one of course, but not one that will fix the density issue.

The two high level areas (lets exclude SSC) are both exceptionally well populated, and in Frostgorge's case, it doesn't even need to be. The enemies are not dense and only the Claw is not soloable. If you're looking to park a character specifically for dailies, FG would be my recommendation since you'd grab ori and etc for your daily gathering.

Cursed Shore is faster for everything, but you'd need another character to grab kill variety (and thus might might miss out on some level 80 silver [that will add up.])

Higher areas give higher-level loot more reliably, as well as more expensive mats. That's why.

And less events. And longer events. If I have 30-45 minutes, I don't want to spend 60 minutes to finally get my 5 events together. In Plains of Ashford, I can get those 5 events within 10 to 20 minutes. The rest of my playtime can then be done in the area where I want to be, to finish the rest of the daily, get one or two extra events and continue my exploration. Instead of trying to find events, because they're never there where you are.

Originally Posted by EnoughAlready

GW1 did do it better.
I haven't seen an overflow in weeks if not months.
Outside of special events the overflow tech is becoming redundant.

I agree (naturally, if you want to go to an overflow, go to LA). I wonder, if you go to LA (as that city has overflows), join a party there from various servers and go to Gendarran, will the party stay together, even though there's no overflow in Gendarran? Probably not, so the overflow system simply can be ignored right now.

Originally Posted by shawn

Gw2 solution: party them, right click, join in zone.

Theoretically... But I agree in part with you. The advantage of districts is that you can form a much larger group. With the way GW2 has implemented it, you must first party up with somebody before you can join him on the same server. If you want to get a group of 100 people together (or more, in case of large PvE user events), it can become highly annoying...

Lady Rhonwyn (sister of Danea, Katlinel, Gwendydd, and the rest)
Guild leader of GWOnline [GWO]
"Kind of a big mouth", "People Know Me, whether they like it or not", "I'm very vocal", "I wrote many leather bound books", "My Guild Hall is the forum", "Goddess posting amongst mere mortals" (courtesy of Cardinal Cyn)

I agree (naturally, if you want to go to an overflow, go to LA). I wonder, if you go to LA (as that city has overflows), join a party there from various servers and go to Gendarran, will the party stay together, even though there's no overflow in Gendarran? Probably not, so the overflow system simply can be ignored right now.

If there's no overflow in Gendarran and everyone enters the zone, then where else would everyone be but in the same zone? Or maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying here.

Theoretically... But I agree in part with you. The advantage of districts is that you can form a much larger group. With the way GW2 has implemented it, you must first party up with somebody before you can join him on the same server. If you want to get a group of 100 people together (or more, in case of large PvE user events), it can become highly annoying...

Yes, on this I will certainly agree. They should just have a drop down list like they did in GW1 with overflow server 1, 2, 3, etc. I don't know why they don't do this. Maybe there's someway to exploit the game if you could choose what overflow server you land in.

If there's no overflow in Gendarran and everyone enters the zone, then where else would everyone be but in the same zone? Or maybe I'm not understanding what you're saying here.

Let's say, I and one friend assemble in LA. I play on Aurora Glade, my friend on Piken Square. LA has an overflow, so we move to that town and join in the same overflow. Now we move to Gendarran. Which doesn't have an overflow. I presume the party will be "split up" again, with me playing on the Aurora Glade Gendarran area and my friend in the Piken Square Gendarran area.

Last edited by Lady Rhonwyn; 13-12-2012 at 07:47.

Lady Rhonwyn (sister of Danea, Katlinel, Gwendydd, and the rest)
Guild leader of GWOnline [GWO]
"Kind of a big mouth", "People Know Me, whether they like it or not", "I'm very vocal", "I wrote many leather bound books", "My Guild Hall is the forum", "Goddess posting amongst mere mortals" (courtesy of Cardinal Cyn)